


Remembrance Sunday (when you sleep you remind me of the dead)

by Mercy



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - Wodehouse
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-22
Updated: 2010-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 11:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercy/pseuds/Mercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertie and Jeeves in the trenches, 1918.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembrance Sunday (when you sleep you remind me of the dead)

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to write a big splodey action sequence as instructed by Blackletter. This is what happened instead.
> 
> My apologies to Sigfried Sassoon for poetry theft.

Shells screamed by and roared to earth, a dull echo reporting through the valley as we picked our way across the rocky darkness. I had been separated from Captain Osborne some several miles back in the confused haze of smoke and dust. My attention was divided between remaining upright and unscathed and scanning what little horizon there was in search of him while I watched and listened for any sign of gas.

"Lieutenant!" I called to the man to my left as he fell to his knees. He did not hear me, but others coming behind him stopped to see to him.

I continued forward, towards the shelling and the line we had been called to reinforce. The murky sky ahead flared orange with an explosion that shook the ground in a low hum beneath my blistered heels.

In three more steps I momentarily believed the soil beneath me had caved in, but the scrape of sandbags against my cheeks as I lurched forward and the all too familiar odour of stale water, excrement,creosol and desperation informed me that I had merely fallen into a trench. I heard the thuds and splashes of men down the line behind me doing the same; it was the path to the battle ahead.

A rat the size of a small cat lumbered out of my path, likely well fed by the boy of certainly no more than sixteen I found slumped over the fire-step a few yards ahead, the side of his face blasted away and gleaming black with blood in the night. Two years ago I might have said a prayer; now I merely closed my eyes briefly and turned my head to breathe air from the other direction as I passed.

Ahead in the darkness I heard the faint sound of song; men, I thought, singing as they marched. "Goodbye, Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square! It's a long long way to Tipperary, and my heart's right there!"

Curiously, as I approached, the sound grew stronger. The singers were not moving. I suspected I might come upon them to find a pair of intoxicated straggler privates hiding in a shelter, until a loud groan punctuated the end of the last refrain.

"Never mind that, Bobby," said a voice, ringing loud and high with terrified cheer. "Never mind that. Scars that never felt a wound, as the fellow said."

I quickened my pace.

"What about 'Darktown Strutters' Ball?' Do you know that one?" Presumably the other man responded, though I could not hear it. Only barely could I hear the wounded Bobby's voice join the light baritone of his companion's, growing stronger as I drew nearer.

Had I not heard them, I might not have seen them. Beneath a high point in the trench, a cave of sorts had been carved out to accommodate some weapon or equipment, and it was from that pitch darkness that Bobby's companion called out, "Hello! Hi! Man down here!" Bobby's faint singing died into a violent cough. "Stiff upper lip, Bobby. Here's some help coming."

I struck my cigarette lighter, which cast the small alcove in a dim glow. Bobby, I could now see, was an American soldier not much older than the boy I had passed, a dark wet mass of cloth held to his gut by the other man, whose hopeful relief fell away when he saw me. "You're not with an ambulance, are you?"

"No, sir," I said, for though the insignia of his rank were obscured by darkness and dirt, I could see that he was an officer. "I believe the ambulances preceded us by several hours."

"Damn," the officer muttered, "must've gone right over us." Bobby moaned piteously. "Shh, shh. There'll be others. You can stick it a bit longer, can't you?" Bobby lifted one limp hand and placed it briefly atop the ones pressed to his wound.

"Might I be of any assistance, sir?" I asked. I retrieved a candle from my pack and wedged it between two rocks before lighting it.

"Unless you've got a dressing station in your pocket, I rather think not," the officer snapped, then sighed. "I'm sorry. It isn't your fault. I've been here for ages, and he'd already been here for ages when I found him. I'm Wooster. This is Bobby Carnahan from--where was it, Bobby?"

"Charleston," croaked Mr Carnahan.

"That's the one. We're just having a bit of an old sing-song to keep the spirits up. We Woosters are old campaigners, you know, but it's all a bit new to Bobby here. Got any good ones--er, sorry, old chap, I didn't get your name."

"My name is Jeeves, sir, and regrettably any vocal effort I might make would run counter to your purpose. I can, however, supply spirits of another variety."

"You talk funny," Mr Carnahan observed as I uncorked the flask of whiskey from my pocket and trickled a small measure between his dry lips. He coughed. "That ain't G.I. liquor."

"No, sir. It is from my commanding officer's private supply." I offered the flask to Mr Wooster, who shrugged without lifting his hands from where they were needed. I stepped around Mr Carnahan and tipped the flask to Mr Wooster's mouth.

He drank a generous portion and sighed contentedly. "Thank you, Jeeves," he said. "That's really the stuff for the troops, if you'll pardon the expression."

"Bertie," Mr Carnahan started, but began to cough violently, bringing up blood that stained his lips dark. Mr Wooster's eyes caught mine with knowing worry. "In my coat pocket," he began again after managing a clean breath.

"You've told me," Mr Wooster said. "You'll be walking wounded and posting it yourself in no time at all, old thing."

"Hey--" Another series of coughs wracked Mr Carnahan. "Hey, Bertie, do you know this one? 'Oh, I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray! In Dixie land I'll take my stand, to--'"

He did not stutter, or moan, or cough again. He merely stopped, eyes open and mouth frozen mid-syllable.

"Bobby?" Mr Wooster said. "Bobby!"

I crouched down to feel for a pulse in Mr Carnahan's neck. His head lolled to one side and a slow stream of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. I could only shake my head in regret.

Mr Wooster sagged back, staring blankly ahead and wiping his hands on the knees of his trousers, uncaring of the blood or the dirt transferred to either. I proffered my handkerchief; he did not give it a glance, but did not protest when I wet it with a small amount of my supply of water and began to clean the blood away myself. His fingers were long, his hands extraordinarily soft. He could not have been here long.

"I think one says a prayer, or something. Isn't that the thing?" Mr Wooster asked at length, his previous spirited optimism nowhere in evidence.

"The Lord is my shepherd," I began. The candle guttered and extinguished itself, and we recited the remainder in darkness.

I tentatively suggested, after some several more minutes of dark silence, that we continue towards the ordered destination.

"I hate to leave him," Mr Wooster said.

"He was not alone at the end," I replied, "which is better than many men can hope."

"Right," he sighed. I heard the rustle of cloth as he stood. "Strike that light again, would you, Jeeves?"

I complied, and watched in the dim flicker as he bent down and closed Mr Carnahan's eyes, then extracted the mentioned letter from the coat pocket.

We continued up the trench at a slow pace, Mr Wooster saying nothing at all for perhaps half an hour. Then he began to hum under his breath, and finally to sing a few lines. "You know, Jeeves, I'm not really altogether certain where this Tipperary is."

"I believe it is a county in the southern portion of Ireland, sir."

"You haven't got to call me sir, you know. I'm only a corporal."

"Partially a force of habit, Corporal Wooster. I was in service most of my life before I volunteered."

"Now that I think of it, some relation-by-aunt of mine had a butler called Jeeves. One of yours?"

"Perhaps--" I got no further on the details of my father's situation, for a deafening roar shook the world sideways. On instinct I caught Corporal Wooster round the waist and threw him to the ground beneath me. We lay tense as shell after shell bombarded the ground above us, but none struck near enough to hit us.

When the air echoed into quiet, he smiled up at me. "If you're still keen on service when this is all over, look me up. But for now, I think we'd better leg it, hadn't we?"

"Indeed, sir," I said. I levered myself to my feet and pulled him up after me, and we ran. It was only when I needed my right hand to catch myself after tripping over a mislaid board that I realized it was still clasped in his.

 

We never spoke of it, and even after the flicker of recognition the first day I came to his door, I was uncertain whether he remembered at all. The first November in his employ, I placed a poppy in Mr Wooster's buttonhole, as I would have done for any gentleman venturing out on that day. With a smile that lacked its usual enthusiasm, he seated himself at the piano and played nine slow notes of the first song I ever heard him sing.

"I try not to think of it," he said after a long moment of staring down at the keys.

"An understandable sentiment, sir."

"I looked his mother up, you know, after I got back. Bobby's, I mean. Sailed all the way to South Carolina to pat her hand and lie through my bally teeth."

"Sir?"

"I told her it was quick."

 

_(And so the song breaks off; and I'm alone.  
They're dead....For God's sake stop that gramophone)_


End file.
